Drug, police cars declared a surplus by Rainbow City

RAINBOW CITY - If you transport or deal drugs in Rainbow City your vehicle could end up "for sale" in the city hall parking lot.

Three vehicles confiscated in drug seizures by the police department were declared surplus and will be sold to the general public by sealed bids, the City Council decided at Monday night's meeting.

Police Chief Morris Alexander announced that his department had been given permission to sell or keep the vehicles by a judge following the seizures of the vehicles from their former owners months ago. Only council approval was needed, he said.

The vehicles - a white 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, a red 1992 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, and a white 1997 Toyota 4-Runner - were each assigned minimum bid amounts. They were: $250 for the 1978 Oldsmobile, $750 for the 1992 Oldsmobile, and $10,000 for the Toyota. The highest bid will be taken for each.

Police departments can take over ownership of "drug" vehicles at the discretion of a state or federal judge after they file the necessary paperwork with a civil court, police investigator Dale Walton said on Tuesday.

Narcotics investigator Chaz Clifton, who worked the cases, said the Toyota belonged to Dennis Young, a former chairman of the Attalla Board of Education, who was arrested Sept. 15, 2000, outside an East Gadsden drug store after making a drug deal. He later pleaded guilty to trafficking in OxyContin and unlawful distribution of a controlled substance just before his trial was to begin in 2002. Young served no jail time but was ordered to pay fines of $50,000 and $2,500 on the two charges as well as surrender his drivers license.

The Oldsmobiles were used in the transportation and selling of methamphetamine by two other dealers, Clifton said.

Young's vehicle was difficult to confiscate because the day after he was arrested he convinced a local credit union, which was apparently unaware of the crime, to loan him money against the vehicle, which was paid for, Clifton said.

Clifton praised Alabama's Controlled Substance Act, which allows the seizures in civil courts, as a valuable tool for police. He said dealers occasionally get light sentences because of prison overpopulation and other factors so seizures are another way of sending those dealers a message.

"We are trying to hurt the drug dealers anyway we possibly can," Clifton said. "We are also filing seizures on houses." He said the department would be essentially "arresting" the property that was used in a drug crime.

Three other vehicles - 1995, 1996 and 1997 police cruisers - were also declared surplus by a council vote at the Monday's meeting. The Ford Crown Victorias will not be sold immediately, however, because Alexander said he is researching the possibility of trading them in on a cargo van. He said he wants a van to be converted for the department's special response team to use when it encounters crisis situations in the city.

In other action, the council accepted the lone bid for the leasing of an elevated scraper. The council voted to lease a scraper from Thompson Tractor Co., which has an office in Attalla, for at least two months at $9,900 (for 176 hours) a month. Council member Frank Ramsey said he hopes a city employee can immediately begin removing dirt at Pioneer Campground where several new ball fields will be built.

The council also approved the rezoning and land swap of two several acre properties along Alaba-

ma 77 owned by two separate landowners. Land owned by Regency Pointe Inc., near its retirement community development, will now be owned by Dr. Michael J. Naughton, and was rezoned from planned unit development (a mixed use) to highway commercial. Naughton's former property, now owned by Regency Pointe, was rezoned from highway commercial to planned unit development.

Kathy Hill, with the city's building department, said the land swap was agreed to in a recent Planning Commission meeting by both parties. The swap stemmed from Regency Pointe's objection to the proximity of property owned by Naughton that he wished to develop commercially.

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